Food materials and their adulterations

Preface To Revised Edition

CONDITIONS have changed with marvelous rapidity in the twenty years since this Httle book was written, and in no quarter more than in the food problem. The original aim of the author and her collaborators was to arouse women providers for their families to the need of a study of the materials they purchased, both from a sanitary and economic point of view.

If such study was needed then, it is tenfold more important now, since, while the women have slept, the manufacturer has kept wide awake and has employed the chemist to help him impose upon the ignorant and credulous housekeeper.

With the establishment of state and city laboratories there is not today the need of the Housekeepers' Laboratory which the authors tried to introduce. Nearly every householder can find the information that she needs by a visit to one of these laboratories if not in the printed reports. To take an instance from a burning subject at this writing : Since 1896, when the Massachusetts State Board of Health first published a list of patent medicines containing alcohol, there has been no excuse for any citizen of the state to be deceivedo Common sense would have told him that such a practice once started would go on and other names would cover similar compoundso Housekeepers should make use of the information which is paid for by their taxes„

It is to ring again the call to study facts and conditions that the author and her coadjutors have decided to revise this little volume, which has been out of print for some time

IV PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION

They are unable to understand the slowness of young women to take up the study of chemistry after they have made it possible and have shown the practical advantage of such knowledge.

Doubtless some such universal excitement as the country has just been through is needed to focus attention. All this agitation over the pure food law has come about because the buyer has not kept himself informed as to the methods of manufacture, and because the impossible has been demanded. We are all suffering because thoughtless and ignorant women have demanded red berries, green pickles, bright catsup, and variegated candies, and have not even considered whether the results were possible without preservatives and coal tar dyes. It is, perhaps, an evidence of the ancient credulity persisting in the belief that science can work miracles. But it was to combat that idea with knowledge that this volume was written and is now rewritteno It seems incredible that intelligent women could have put upon their tables canned meats " largely corn meal " and not know the difference.

To the housewife and mother we say : For the sake of your children keep yourselves informed of the true state of the food manufacture. Do not accept all sensational headlines, but yourself study and give your daughters an opportunity to study chemistry in the high school. Encourage your grocer to provide honest goods. It will take time and thought, but on what can these be better spent than on that which gives health and vigor for the better enjoyment of all the good things of life?

Boston, July, 1906.

Preface To First Edition

'T'HERE is neither novelty in the information which this little volume seeks to convey, nor originality in the manner of presenting it ; but when its preparation was begun, some years since, the facts here considered were for the most part found scattered through large and costly technical works, written for the conditions existing in England and Germany. The books claiming to be popular expositions were either so old as to be out of date, were sensational, or otherwise unsatisfactory.

One excellent English work has recently appeared which is so suitable and admirable in form, as well as in material, that at the first glance it seemed superfluous to issue the present one. Yet Church's " Food " was prepared especially for the visitors to the Bethnal Green branch of the South Kensington Museum, London, while the place which this little volume is intended to fill is that of giving useful information in a form available and attractive for schools and for home reading without technicalities or unnecessary details. It has been compiled from many sources, and it would be impossible to credit each book with the special facts derived from it, since the same thing in different forms is often found in several works. Quotation marks are intended to indicate all passages taken verbatim. The names of the books consulted will be found in the list at the end of the volume. It is in the hope that these works may be more widely known, and the subjects of which they treat more earnestly studied, that this slight contribution is sent forth.

VI PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION

The conclusions are a result of ten years' experience in laboratory examination of food materials.

The author is especially indebted to Miss S. Minns and to Miss L. M. Peabody for valuable aid, both in the laboratory and in the preparation of the text. Boston, December, 1885.

Contents

I. Principles of Diet . . . . . . . i

II. The Relation of General Intelligence to the

Quality of the Food Supply .... 4

Chapter I Principles Of Diet

THE food of savage and semi-civilized man has always been of the material most readily obtained; either the flesh of animals killed in the chase, or wild fruits native to his country, or the products of crude agriculture.^ The nations of Northern Europe, down to nearly the middle of the present century, ate rye and barley bread, as wheat could not be profitably grown in that region ; and the Esquimaux today live upon the product of the seal fishery from necessity, not from choice.

Now, the food products of the whole world are accessible to the people of the United States through the use of improved methods of transportation — the refrigerator car and steamship compartment — and through improved methods of preservation — by cold storage and by the canning process.

This very abundance brings its own danger, for the appetite is no longer a sufficient guide to the selection of food, as it was in the case of the early peoples, who were not tempted by so great a variety.

No hard and fast rule of what to eat can be laid

1 For the diet of ancient peoples, see Food and Dietetics, Pavy, p. 475.

down. Not only is it true that what is meat to one is poison to another, but it is also true that what a man may eat with impunity today may cause illness tomorrow, because the man himself is in a different condition. After a day spent in -pleasurable exercise in the open air one may take a meal which might jeopardize his life if taken after a day of grief, anxiety, or exposure to severe cold.

Bodily energy is supplied by the food which has been "assimilated," made a part of the body tissues. Much food eaten is never so utilized. It passes through only slightly changed or is decomposed into toxic substances that do the body harm and not good. Illnesses which come from this cause are said to be due to auto-infection.

Many diseases of modern civihzation are doubtless due to errors of diet, which might easily be avoided. Numerous dietaries have been published, but nearly all are only of limited local application, so that when applied elsewhere they have failed and brought discredit upon the whole plan. Only certain broad principles can be laid down, and much intelligent study must be brought to bear upon the question in each community. ^

The first general principle is suggested by Dr. Pavy, when he calls attention to the fact that the meat eaters among animals, having to hunt for their food, pass long intervals without any, and when it is obtained gorge themselves with it, and then lie torpid for days. The herbivorous animals, having their food always near them, eat all the time, and are stupid all the time.

1 F. G. Benedict : Journal of Physiology.

Man ought not to imitate either class. It is his privilege to choose such times for eating and such materials for food as will best develop his mental power. Many writers seem to forget this, and to plan man's food as if he were a mere animal, whereas he is or may be very much more. His food should be such as to keep the animal mechanism in good order for the mind to use. It should not be overfed, so as to be sluggish, nor should it be starved, so as to be incapable of executing the mind's demands.

Food should be eaten for bodily profit and not for pleasure only. The two should be combined in a correct diet.

While the whimsicalities of the sitophobist should be avoided and the stomach allowed to do its work unwatched, yet each one should take pains to acquire right habits in eating, as in walking or speaking. The physician knows that a large part of man's ills comes from his persisting in bad habits of eating and from his dense ignorance of food and its effect on him.

Life is too valuable a possession to be at the mercy of mere whims, and it is an economy of expensive material to make the food tell in an efficient life. Further discussion of these points belongs elsewhere. In this volume one side of the food question only is presented.

Chapter II The Relation Of General Intelligence To The Quality Of The Food Supply

THE prosperity of a nation depends upon the health and the morals of its citizens ; and the health and the morals of a people depend mainly upon the food they eat and the homes they live in.

Strong men and women cannot be ''raised" on insufificient food. Good-tempered, temperate, highly moral men cannot be expected from a race which eats badly cooked food, irritating to the digestive organs and unsatisfying to the appetite. Wholesome and palatable food is the first step in good morals, and is conducive to ability in business, skill in trade, and healthy tone in literature.

This being granted, what office is of more importance to the State than that of the provider of food for the families composing it .? The modern stock farm has given us most of the scientific knowledge we possess on the question of foods. All this because it pays to know the composition of the food and its effect on the value of the stock. Shall the human animal be considered of less consequence ?

The agricultural states of the Union have recognized the two fundamental professions upon which their prosperity rests, and have established in their agricultural colleges a parallel course of domestic economy to complete the education of the girls.

This is an instance of wisdom, an example which might be more widely followed, for in all our towns and villages the housewives need to know something of the materials of daily consumption.

The conditions of life have changed here in New England so rapidly and completely that our young housewives find themselves very much at a loss. The methods of their mothers and grandmothers will no longer answer. They had no trouble with their soap, for they superintended its making and knew its properties. They knew how colored fabrics should be washed, for they had the coloring done under their own eyes. Wc buy everything, and have no idea of the processes by which the articles are produced, and have no means of knowing beforehand what the quality may be. Relatively, we are in a state of barbarous ignorance, as compared with our grandmothers, about the common articles of daily use.

The only remedy is for our girls to learn something practical about these forces and the nature of the materials which are scattered about so freely. The distinction between an educated cook and an uneducated one of the same skill is that the educated one can tell some one else just how and why she takes each step, while the uneducated one can do the thing, but cannot tell any one else how or why she does it. Let our schoolgirls bear this in mind, and so study their chemistry and physics that they can tell why this and that should or should not be done. A little actual knowledge wonderfully simplifies things, and adds interest to the commonest deeds.

Educated women must mark out a new plan for themselves. Our girls must be taught to recognize the profession of housekeeping as one of the highest, although not necessarily the only one ; but, whatever art or accomplishment they may acquire besides, let them consider that the management of a household is not to be neglected. The properly educated housekeeper is not a drudge ; she has all the forces of nature at her command — the lightning harnessed to give her light ; the stored-up energy of past ages at her command by the turning of a stopcock ; swift steamships and railways bring to her fruits and vegetables from all climes ; the vast prairies furnish meat, game, and flour ; mechanical skill gives her all kinds of labor-saving devices ; the general prosperity and improving taste of the country admit of tasteful decoration of the rooms. Surely, never did housekeeping present so many charms. Alas ! the winged Pegasus is too strong for his unskilled rider, for in his train has come a style of living both extravagant and demoralizing. All this delicate machinery and costly luxury are committed by ignorant mistresses to still more ignorant servants — conservative by inheritance and superstitious by nature, restless with the very air of the new and to them wonderful country, where all men are equal, and naturally bewildered by the novelties of the new life, so different from their simple one. What wonder that the complicated machinery comes to grief, and the tempers of both mistress and maid are spoiled in attempting the impossible !

Within the memory of the present generation there has crept into the heads of the great American people a most pernicious and insidious idea — that labor with the hands alone is degrading and beneath the dignity of a free American citizen. Nowhere has this been more noticeable than in the place to which housework has been relegated.

To judge by the opinion of the average schoolgirl, one would think that housekeeping required no more thought than the breaking of stones on the highway. Such may listen with profit to Ruskin when he says : " It is a no less fatal error to despise labor when regulated by intellect than to value it for its own sake. In these days we are always trying to separate the two. We want one man to be always thinking, another to be always working ; and we call the one a gentleman and the other an operative, whereas the workman ought often to be thinking and the thinker to be working, and both should be gentlemen in the best sense. Now, it is only by labor that thought can be made healthy, and only by thought that labor can be made happy." If this is assented to, then is not the conclusion clear that if our girls were capable of tJiinking about the many problems of housework and of investip-atinonew and better ways they would find the work an interesting and worthy one .?

Just now educators are complaining of all classes of students, saying that they are too careless or too indolent to think for themselves, that they wish their knowledge, like their food, ''predigested." Women of sense ought not to shirk a little exercise of their minds.

Political economists are beginning to take up this subject, for they see that the ultimate welfare of the country depends upon securing the maximum of utility for the money spent. The money's worth must be obtained from both material and labor. The law of utility requires an adequate return for the value consumed. A loaf of bread eaten by a farm hand returns more than its value in the produce of that man's labor ; so it should be with all labor, whether mechanical or literary. A loaf of bread allowed to mold brings no return in wheat or in useful thought, and it is therefore wasted — so much value thrown away. So, too, if a family consume at one meal three times as much food as is needed to keep them in perfect health, the excess is wasted, and sometimes worse, in that it causes disease. Not that a family which can afford beef should live on corn meal, but that if the food is not wisely used for pleasure or nourishment it is wasted.

It is believed by many that instruction in the fundamental laws of hygiene and of efficient living should begin in the elementary school and continue through and beyond -the college.

The following statement was unanimously adopted as the sentiment of the Lake Placid Conference in 1902 :^

"The Lake Placid Conference on Home Economics considers that the time has come when subjects related to the home and its interests should have larger recognition in our colleges and universities.

1 Proceedings of Lake Placid Conference on Home Economics, 1904.

" Recognizing the fact that there is a strong and steadily increasing demand for knowledge of these subjects, believing that their educational possibilities are not inferior to those of other subjects now in the curriculum, and that instruction in these branches promotes in a high degree individual and social efficiency, we earnestly request that the heads of our higher institutions consider the advisability of introducing such work. This may be done either by the establishment of new departments or by the extension of courses already offered.

" History, sociology, and economics deal with fundamental problems of the family and the home. Biology, chemistry, and physics have important applications in the household. This has been already recognized to some extent by leading universities, and their curriculums include such courses as 'The Family,' 'The Citizen or Householder,' 'The Evolution of the House,' 'Sanitary Chemistry,' 'Food and Nutrition,' 'Bacteriology,' besides work in sanitation, physiology, and hygiene.

"The members of this conference believe that an extension of such work where it is already established and its introduction in other institutions would contribute to the solution of some of the most important social problems of today."

One of the most puzzling problems which a modern housewife has to solve is to learn the quality of the various food materials which she provides for the use of the family, and to know how to apportion them. So much has been said on the subject of adulteration in the past few years that the peace of mind of a conscientious woman is quite gone.

A government report on baking powder, made some years ago, argues that the '' housewife surely deserves protection against swindling as much as the farmer (for whom the government will make analyses of fertilizers), and she has no better means of ascertaining the strength and quality of the baking powder she buys than the farmer has for the strength of his fertilizer. The verity and accuracy of the analysis stated on the label should be insured, as in the case of the fertilizer, by its being performed by a sworn analyst. If such a regulation were enforced, people would soon inform themselves of the respective merits of the different varieties, and the further requirements of a certain standard of strength, as suggested by Professor Cornwall, would probably be unnecessary, as they would learn to interpret the analysis, and a powder made up of fifty per cent of starch, for instance, would have to be sold cheaper than one made with ten per cent, or not sold at all." i

Reference is made several times in these pages to the sources of reliable information, and here emphasis is laid on the fact that many of the alarming statements, so disquieting to anxious mothers, are inserted in the circulars sown broadcast and in newspaper advertisements by one manufacturer to decry another's product and to promote the sale of his own. Sometimes these are not exactly falsehoods, but they may easily be interpreted in a false way.

1 Quoted in Bulletin of the Kansas State Board of Health, March, 1906,

If the buyer used a little of that thinking power for which we have been pleading he or she would not be deceived. The boldness with which misleading statements are printed leads to the inevitable conviction that buyers will not take the trouble to think or to find out from the city and state authorities what is true. Instead of taking the sensible course the average woman believes every sensational article that she reads, and does almost as much harm to her family by avoiding a good article as by purchasing an inferior one.

The unanimous testimony of all chemists who have carefully investigated the extent to which adulteration of food is carried on in the United States is that, while there exists adulteration injurious to health, there is a much greater injury to the morals of the community and loss to the pockets of the people. In other words, the point to which public attention should be mainly directed is the question of paying a high price for an inferior article. In some portions of the country ground gypsum — at perhaps a cent a pound — is sold for cream of tartar at ten cents a quarter of a pound. Now this fraud can be detected by any one who knows that cream of tartar is soluble in hot water, while gypsum is not. A cupful of boiling water poured upon half a teaspoonful of good cream of tartar will dissolve it almost instantly, giving a nearly transparent liquid.

In these days of wandering attention "scare heads" alone fix themselves on the public mind. So it has come about that the word "adulteration" looms large in the estimation of even thoughtful persons, who pass by the really important matter of nutritive value and of combination. Yet the number of deaths caused by adulteration is infinitesimal compared with the number caused by auto-infection (from diseases arising within the body) and by personal indiscretion in diet.

If the present interest in the misdemeanors of the manufacturers shall focus attention on the importance of food to human welfare it will have served a good purpose.

A long acquaintance with the markets of the country in the East and West, North and South, leads the author to the estimate that not over two per cent of the total weight of the food sold in shops and markets is adulterated, and that not more than an additional three per cent is sophisticated — that is, lowered in commercial value by a cheaper ingredient.

What proportion of the whole bulk of the family food is made up by the few ounces of spices, condiments, and fruit essence ? What if the color of the occasional pink tea or green dinner is aniline dye ! One-sixteenth of an ounce is probably a large estimate of the amount used by any one person in a year.

The extra twenty per cent of starch in a box of baking powder, if a family uses ten pounds a year, levies a tax of only sixty to eighty cents, or twelve to sixteen cents a person. How many times that amount do all today waste on candy and soda ? The damage to health by the injudicious drinking of soda and various ''bottled beverages" is many times that caused by all the preservatives used in food.

It is, however, true that " the use of preservatives, usually salicylic acid or benzoate of soda, is very common in the manufacture of fruit syrups and that coal tar dyes are freely used to give an attractive color.

''The grape juices have usually been found pure, but in some instances from five to seven per cent of alcohol has been found.

''All lime juices are much below standard, having been diluted with two or three times their volume of water." ^

It has been the history of every harmful adulteration that, as soon as the public became aware of the nature of it, its manufacture was stopped and some new device substituted. The remedy, then, for this sort of fraud is the education of the general public to such an extent that it can, with some degree of probability, detect any flagrant case of adulteration or substitution. It is the aim of this little book to place in the hands of housekeepers such information as will enable them to purchase intelligently and to know in what direction to be suspicious of the different food products on the market. The nature of the adulterations will vary from year to year with the advance of knowledge and with the detection and exposure of the accustomed frauds ; therefore a careful watch is needed to keep the dealers and manufacturers in check. The bulletins of each state agricultural experiment station give the results of examination of local markets.

Demand is the great cause of supply ; and if many of the reasons for complaint were examined, it would be found that the grocers, of whom we so bitterly complain, are only supplying the demand of their cu ;-

J New Hampshire Sanitary Bulletin, October, 1904, p. 70.

tomers. Few dealers are in a position to instruct their customers ; there are occasional philanthropists among them, but most of them must make money, and they can do this only by supplying what the public want. The superstition yet lingering in the minds of people is nowhere shown more clearly than in the purchases they make for e very-day use.

Science, and especially chemical science, has achieved so many marvelous triumphs within the last fifty years that it is looked upon as an occult knowledge, having the power which was attributed to the alchemy of the Middle Ages ; and even intelligent persons, perhaps unconsciously, look upon chemical operations as capable of transforming substances in as subtle a manner as was claimed to be possible by the old-time searcher after the philosopher's stone. As a result, the average housekeeper is a fit subject for the modern alchemist — the man who can turn cereals and apple cores into gold by a few neatly turned phrases calculated to impress the housewife with the profound wisdom of the manufacturer.

" Although the words * adulteration ' and ' sophistication ' are in a degree synonymous, yet there is a distinction which seems borne out in legal practice. To adulterate the coin of the realm or the liquor of the bar with a baser metal or an imitation whisky is a heinous offense. So is the mixture of milk with the baser article, water, which thereby lowers its food value. But the ' wretched sophistry ' which obscures the nature of things on a package of prepared food misleads more persons and inflicts more injury on the community than the other, yet goes unrebuked. The most bare-faced assertions are printed in magazines, and ' pure food shows ' only whet the appetite for something new."i

In considering the probabilities of adulteration, one important fact must not be overlooked. When prices are low and food is plentiful there is much less reason for admixture of foreign substances ; but when prices are high and any article scarce, then is adulteration rife. Take, for example, cream of tartar : in ordinary years, when money is plentiful and gold at par, it can be bought at from thirty-five to forty cents a pound ; but when gold was two dollars or more, as during the Civil War, and when the risk of importation became considerable, cream of tartar sold for two dollars or so a pound. The poor people could not pay fifty cents for what they had been accustomed to get for ten, but they did not know enough of the principles of cooking to get along without it, and so they asked for something cheaper. During those years there was very little of the genuine article sold under the name, and the result was poor bread and injured health.

A very good example of the law of supply and demand was given to the writer by a man of strict integrity, but a man of business who understood the public temper. When quite young he kept a small grocery store in one of the suburbs of Boston. Cream of tartar had just come into use. A woman who had been in the habit of purchasing her supplies at a neighboring grocery came to him one day for some articles.

1 Air, Water, and Food, p. 155.

The young man prided himself on the good quahty of his goods, therefore felt quite sure she would be pleased and give him her custom. What was his surprise to have her come back and complain of the quality of his cream of tartar. It did not make as good bread as that which she had been buying. He ventured to suggest that perhaps it was strong and that she used too much ; but she would not be satisfied and wanted another kind, so he made up a package for her of two-thirds cream of tartar and one-third rice flour ; this satisfied her, and she became his customer. We can hardly expect our grocers to become philanthropists and teachers of the people. Their business is to supply the public with the articles which it demands, and it is from education of the public that we must look for redress. There is great danger to the moral sense of the community from this sort of cheating — this obtaining money under false pretences (for it is nothing else). And the pubhc is content to be cheated ; it should be aroused, and by a knowledge of food materials a stop may be put to most frauds.